True stories of counterintuitive life lessons

Uncovering the anti-Christ. Yes, really. I’ve figured it out.

October 20, 2018

It wasn’t too long ago that there was a lot of online chatter among conservative American evangelicals about how they believed that President Barack Obama was the anti-Christ – the personification of the devil on earth.

If you don’t recall, or you’d like a sampling to remind you that this really was a thing, have a look at any of the countless YouTube videos “proving” that Obama’s election was the coming of the Beast and that he was the bringer-of-the-end-of-days, as foretold in the Book of Revelation.

You may have noticed that the end of days hasn’t actually arrived – yet. When Barack Obama left office the world was more or less still intact. Maybe he was really bad at being the anti-Christ?

No, that doesn’t make a lot of sense does it? But still, one poll showed that as many as 1 in 4 Americans during his Presidency believed that Barack Obama was the son of Perdition. The Beast. The Idol Shepherd. The Angel of the Bottomless Pit.

How could millions of devout American evangelical Republican Christians have gotten it so wrong? Isn’t this pretty much what they do all day long – look for the devil and his progeny? If Obama wasn’t the anti-Christ then that means that the Unholy One must still be out there. That’s very scary! Identifying the Unclean progeny of Beelzebub should be a huge priority for all those evangelicals who believe the rapture is just around the corner. This is a very big deal, right?

I want to help and I think I’ve come up with a solution.

If Obama wasn’t Satan’s Spawn and evangelicals want to find out who the real anti-Christ is, then they can use a fairly simple, but rather ingenious formula that I’ve come up with, which is far more sensible and scientific than their previous method of just declaring: “it must be that there black guy!”

All you would have to do, if you really, really wanted to find and unmask the anti-Christ, is to take note of Jesus Christ, his life, his words and his actions and then look for somebody that was pretty much the exact opposite.

Simple, right? I can’t believe that this has never occurred to a single one of Jesus’ incredibly devoted evangelical Republican American followers, despite the fact that they have carefully and devoutly based their entire lives on following in Christ’s holy example.

They must have just overlooked it somehow. Just bad luck I guess. We all make mistakes and I’m sure Jesus will forgive them. That being said, we still have a job to do. We need to find ourselves a big bad anti-Christ so we can castigate him, declare him as our enemy and prepare for the coming Apocalypse.

Jesus Christ was born a refugee to an unwed mother. His family was poor. He was humble and lived modestly among society’s outcasts. He was an observant Jew, known to fast and pray. He abhorred moneylenders and moneychangers and spoke of poverty as a virtue and how the meek and dispossessed would inherit the earth. He treasured and respected women, being especially close to his mother and Mary Magdalene. He had a small handful of loyal followers during his lifetime, yet despite this relatively low profile, he was seen as an enemy of the state who refused to bow down to earthly authority and he was arrested and killed for his beliefs, which he never compromised even in the face of a torturous death. He loved his enemies as well as his friends and accepted his brutal and unfair fate with grace and never saw himself as a victim.

Now let’s figure out the exact opposite of all that:

If you wanted to identify the anti-Jesus, you’d need to find someone born into great wealth. Someone who deplores refugeesand outsiders as freeloaders or intruders. Someone who prefers the society of celebrities and consorts with dictators. A person who sees women as playthings and speaks of them dismissively. A narcissist who leads an ostentatious life that glorifies wealth. Someone with no interest in an inner life or self-reflection, and no regard for truth. An angry person. Someone irreligious,gluttonous and morally flexible, whose core values and beliefs are subject to compromise depending on their own self-interest. Most importantly, to be the true opposite of Jesus Christ, they would have to be a person in a position of great authority and power. Someone who has the full earthly might of the state at their disposal and an army of followers. Yet despite all of that power and privilege, the true anti-Christ would be a spiteful person who sees themselves as a victim, is quick to insult his enemies and constantly complains bitterly about being treated unfairly. In the ultimate act of blasphemy, they would probably make it their mission in life to take from the poor and give to the rich. A real piece of work, that anti-Christ….

Tick all of those boxes and you got yourself someone who is the ultimate antithesis of Jesus, and thus unquestionably, the real anti-

Christ. So my question to the millions of righteous and devout American evangelicals out there is this:

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About this blog

DO THE WRONG THING is a blog about counterintuitive ideas, contrary notions and cantankerous musings.

My other blog

Expat Claptrap is a blog about Britain and America. Learn what makes a biscuit a biscuit and a cookie a cookie. And how America has bad health care and too many guns, but Britain has terrible nachos. So it's even.